We Have Ways of Making You Talk

[sassa]

We Have Ways of Making You Talk

The United States figures it can get plenty out of the newly captured Chemical Ali. But how? And are these ‘interrogation’ techniques being readied for American citizens?

NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE

Aug. 22 — So Chemical Ali is back from the dead. You may remember that this infamous cousin of Saddam Hussein was reported killed early in the war, during those heady days when “smart bombs†supposedly solved big problems in Iraq.

WELL, IT HAS since become obvious that the smart bombs weren’t so smart and neither was the intelligence that guided them—and that Chemical Ali (real name Ali Hassan al-Majid) was alive and well and on the run, just like Saddam himself.

How he was caught this week, precisely, nobody in the Coalition is saying. But they’re sure happy to have him. He earned his nickname using poison gas on Kurdish Iraqis in 1988, but his list of offenses is much longer than that. He ran the bloody campaign of murder and torture in Kuwait under Iraqi occupation in 1990. He helped butcher Shiites when they revolted in 1991. He even slaughtered two of Saddam’s traitorous sons-in-law in 1996. This thug is a walking encyclopedia of atrocity. He might know where to find Saddam’s missing weapons of mass destruction. He might even know where to find the missing Saddam.

“We won’t know, will we, until we have an opportunity to visit with him?†CENTCOM Commander Gen. John Abizaid told the expectant press when Chemical Ali’s capture was announced. “After that we’ll know a little bit more.â€

But how do you make a man like this talk? We Americans have ways, it would seem, and they were recently outlined by none other than Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. No need to get out the battery cables or fingernail pliers, it seems. The only thing Jacoby tortures is prose. “Interrogation is the art of questioning and examining a source to obtain the maximum amount of usable, reliable information in the least amount of time to meet intelligence requirements,†Jacoby writes in a legal brief. “DIA’s approach to interrogation is largely dependent upon creating an atmosphere of dependency and trust between the subject and interrogator.â€

Actually, we know from other documents declassified over the years that when it comes to questioning hard cases, dependency is a whole lot more important than “trust.†Suspected bad guys are isolated and dependent for every bit of information they receive, even the time of day. The interrogators have the power to grant or withhold permission for every bodily function, including sleep. It’s amazing how fast most people break down under such circumstances.

If that doesn’t work, the treatment can get rough. But you have to read between Jacoby’s lines to figure that out. Because the enemy in the war on terror is so hard to identify and doesn’t fight the kind of war the United States spent trillions of dollars to wage, Jacoby tells us “innovative and aggressive solutions are required.†A “robust program†has been put in place during which “interrogations have been conducted at many locations worldwide by personnel from DIA and other organizations in the Intelligence Community.â€

As one of Jacoby’s subordinates in the U.S. Navy explained to me, the idea is to keep most of the important players out of the United States. Apparently there is no shortage of black holes in which to soften up the bad guys, although only a few are publicized. “The most interesting thing about interrogations is how the U.S. government and military capitalizes on the dubious status (as sovereign states) of Afghanistan, Diego Garcia, Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and aircraft carriers to avoid certain legal questions about rough interrogations,†my friend told me. “Whatever humanitarian pronouncements a state such as ours may make about torture, states don’t perform interrogations, individual people do. What’s going to stop an impatient soldier, in a supralegal location, from whacking one nameless, dehumanized shopkeeper among many?â€

Not the law, certainly. But should we complain? These American interrogators have worked their magic on some of the very bad actors in Al Qaeda, which is one reason the United States is a little safer today than it was two years ago.

But there are some real problems with all this. First of all, as a Lebanese torturer—er, interrogator—of my acquaintance once told me, the real challenge comes if someone is telling the truth: “How do you know?†And what if that truth doesn’t fit with what you really want to hear? And what your bosses really believe—really know in their souls to be the truth? What if, for instance, there really are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq because they really were destroyed to keep United Nations inspectors from finding them? The United States now has captured 37 of the 55 most-wanted Iraqis in the famous pack of cards. That’s what all of them are saying, and lesser-known scientists have told the same story. Yet still the WMD beat goes on.

The means of making people talk, even relatively benign means, become problematic when you don’t actually care what they say.

Still, as a freedom-loving American, that’s not what worries me most about Jacoby’s rationale for robust interrogations in faraway places. What worries me is that it was submitted in January to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to explain techniques used on an American citizen by DIA interrogators after that citizen was arrested and jailed in the United States of America.

The man’s name is José Padilla. Some 15 months ago, Attorney General John Ashcroft commanded worldwide attention when he announced dramatically (on live TV from Russia of all places) that Padilla had been plotting to set off a “dirty bomb†in the United States. Padilla, a high-school dropout and former gang member from Chicago, had drifted into the orbit of Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and had been persuaded to bring a terror campaign back to the United States. Or, rather, to think about doing it. Or, at least, he surfed the Web trying to find out how he might do it. The FBI questioned him for a month, then handed him over to the Pentagon.

Padilla was declared an “enemy combatant†based on the assertion—not the presentation—of “some evidence†by the administration that he was a bin Laden bad guy. As an enemy combatant, Padilla has no right to appear in court. And he has no right to see a lawyer. Indeed, by executive fiat, he’s been deprived of every inalienable right with which our creator endowed us. The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights has filed a brief in the case damning this approach as (quoting James Madison) “the very definition of tyranny.â€

And for what? Whatever Padilla knew in May 2002 when he was caught, the intelligence he can give these days is not exactly real-time. Indeed, the only information he’s received at the Naval Brig in South Carolina, probably including when it is day and when it is night, comes from his interrogators. So why not let him see counsel? Why not present him to the court?

Admiral Jacoby’s rationale is fascinating: first of all, because there might be something the interrogators missed, or can find out if there are new suspects captured somewhere else sometime. And you wouldn’t want Padilla to have any sense of hope if they need to question him again: “Any delay in obtaining information from Padilla could have the severest consequences for national security and public safety.†Secondly—and this is what’s really creepy—because Padilla might reveal “sources and methods.†That is, he might talk about precisely those means that were used to make him talk, therefore he can never be allowed to talk at all.

If the courts buy this line of argument, then we Americans can kiss our sweet rights goodbye. And reading the admiral’s brief, you have to ask yourself if that isn’t really the goal: to give the president and his people the power to treat all Americans like José Padilla, unless and until we give the answers expected of us.

[kramadas]

scary - reminds me of the era when people disappeared because they were thought to be communists...

[alivak]

nobody disappeared because people thought they were communists, there were military personnel and people in the media who were questioned in the 50's because of their feared support of communism. As terrible as that was, no one disappeared..people did disappear in communist countries

[sassa]

Originally posted by alivak

nobody disappeared because people thought they were communists, there were military personnel and people in the media who were questioned in the 50's because of their feared support of communism. As terrible as that was, no one disappeared..people did disappear in communist countries

strange, i've read and heard otherwise from many sources. can you prove this?

[sassa]

10/28/01

3:32:17 PM

An Overview

by Michael Rivero, WhatReallyHappened.com

I want to start out by responding to that tiny percentage of negative email I receive that accuses me of being anti American. I'm not. I think America is a great place, and the American people by and large are to be admired.

What I am against is any government that lies to its people. This includes the government of the United States, which, contrary to Bill Clinton's comments on the matter, is not the same thing as the country. The country is the people. The country is the land. The country is those who build, teach, heal, grow, manufacture, and along the way raise a family. The United States is not found in the marble buildings along the Potomac. The United States is found in the homes and hearts of 266 million Americans.

The government, its self delusions of grandeur aside, is nothing but a custodian, and a temporary one, hired by the people to care for our nation, and if that custodian fails in that job, like any menial, they should be replaced. Our nation did just that once before, in 1776, and it must be remembered that those who were called "Patriot" were those who stood with the people of the nation, not with the corrupted government.

There is no provision in the Constitution that authorizes the government, as custodian of the nation, to lie to the people. It's just not in there. And yet the government of the United States has been caught repeatedly lying to the people of the nation in recent years, lying about Vince Foster , TWA 800 , Waco , Martin Luther King , John F. Kennedy , The Oklahoma City Bombing , and others too numerous to mention. Suffice it to say that if the government of the United States finds itself with a credibility problem, it has only itself to blame.

When the government of the United States lies to the people, it acts illegally and un-Constitutionally and by the strict interpretation of that document ceases to be the legal government of the land. But let us set that aside for the moment and look at why the US Government lies to the people and what such lies have accomplished in the past. Only then can we understand why the reasoning citizen must have serious doubt we are being told the truth by the government in the present case.

Some of the biggest lies told by the government of the United States are those used to initiate a war. Modern pundits keep equating the attacks of 9/11 to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. This is a slippery, indeed dangerous analogy, since it has been proven in recent years, by way of recently declassified documents, that FDR deliberately maneuvered Japan into the attack on Pearl Harbor and kept the Hawaii commanders from knowing of the attack so that there would be plenty of dead bodies with which to enrage Americans into support of a war that as of December 6th, 1941, nobody wanted. American boys, shouting "Remember Pearl Harbor", marched off to war. Many did not come back.

The Spanish/American war was likewise started with deception. The Hearst Newspapers flooded the land with stories of Spanish abuses of the Cuban people; stories which turned out to be fictional and which were published solely to fan the flames of a war, not for the benefit of the Cuban people, but to enlarge American territory and influence. When USS Maine exploded in Havana Harbor, the Captain of that ship insisted that the explosion was not the result of any attack. But he was shouted down by the press, and American boys, shouting "Remember The Maine", marched off to war. Many did not come back. And all because of a lie. In 1975, a review of the evidence by admiral Hyman Rickover, the father of the modern nuclear Navy, concluded that there hadn't been any Spanish mine at all, just as the Maine's Captain had reported. The ships had suffered a fire in a coal bunker, detonating the ship's magazine, imprudently located nearby.

The same with the Gulf of Tonkin. Even as Johnson exhorted the American people to respond to the torpedo attack on the Maddox, Johnson knew there hadn't really been any torpedoes, not had the USS Maddox been as innocent as claimed. American boys again marched off to war. Many did not come back.

Following the Bay of Pigs, which was by any definition an invasion of a foreign nation, the US Joint Chiefs proposed staging fake terrorist attacks that would be blamed on Cuba, to build support for a second invasion.

Of course, there is nothing new about politicians using terror on their own citizens to get what they want. The trick goes back to Roman times, and even Hitler found it useful.

So, let's take a moment to push aside those flags being held in front of our eyes like blindfold and take a close look at the current situation.

The United States government, despite nice sounding speeches about freedom and Democracy, has a record of overthrowing actual working Democracies and supporting outright dictatorships. The US, for example, backed Cuban Dictator Batista, Panama's Noriega, Chile's Pinochet, the Shah of Iran, and the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, to name just a few. The US backed these regimes because the dictators were willing to do favors for American multi-national corporations. Batista, for example, kept the prices of Cuban agricultural products below the prevailing market rate. This made American companies like United Fruit and PepsiCo more profitable, at the expense of the Cuban farmers, who eventually revolted, bringing Castro to power. Castro let the market set the price of Cuban produce, whereupon the United States declared an embargo and invaded at the Bay of Pigs. Then we wonder why the Cuban people may not like us.

Another classic example of US foreign policy as it really is was South America. Chile had a working democracy under Allende. But US corporate interests saw a greater chance for profits if the Democracy were to be replaced by a dictator friendly to US interests. This led to the US backed coup, complete with torture squads trained by US experts. Henry Kissenger flat out stated that the United States had a right to intervene in any Democracy that voted contrary to American interests, adding, "The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves."

Same deal in Iran. The US Government backed the Shah of Iran. The rich got richer, the poor got poorer (same as in the United States) and the people of Iran revolted, bringing the Ayatollah Khomeini to power. Iran was our friend, now it's our enemy.

The same with Iraq, once our friend, and now our enemy. Indeed, the United States keeps switching sides so often, with the American people expected to follow along like lemmings, that one is reminded of George Orwell's "1984" in which the perpetually warring nations are always changing allegiance, and the war weary people wake up one morning to be told, "East Asia is our friend. East Asia has always been our friend. Eurasia is the enemy, and always has been."

This brings us to Osama Bin Laden.

Osama is the modern equivalent of Orwell's "Emmanual Goldstien", the boogie man on whom the government blames everything. Even though careful observers have long known the United States economy was poised for a major decline, the media is spinning the current economic woes as a direct result of the attacks on the World Trade Towers, in the hopes that the general public will be stupid enough to believe it.

If Orwell is not to your taste, then let's try L. Frank Baum and the "Wizard Of Oz", who used a paper mache' mask to scare Dorothy Gale into doing war with the Wicked Witch of the West, something farm girls would not normally be wise to do. After all, witches have air superiority!

Likewise, Osama appears to be a manufactured monster, designed to scare us into doing things we otherwise would not so, including support a war, cease criticizing the government, and surrender our freedoms. Contrary to the public media image of Osama, he is not a lifelong religious fanatic. At the time the United States covert intervention in Afghanistan triggered the Soviet invasion , Osama, like the rest of his family, was living a westernized lifestyle. One of Osama's brothers was a business partner with the son of the then vice-president and former head of the CIA, George H. W. Bush. The CIA needed a front man in Afghanistan to oppose the Soviets, since Vietnam was too fresh a memory for the American people to tolerate another war, especially since the lid had just been blown off of the COINTELPRO scandal , revealing the criminal actions the FBI had engaged in to silence opposition to that war. So, trained and financed by the CIA, Osama quit being a westernized Saudi and seemingly overnight became a fanatical Muslim and financier/leader of the fight against the Soviets, waging an indirect war on behalf of the United States. Osama was a creation of the CIA and we only have the CIA's word that Osama isn't still in their employ. However, as another CIA asset, David Ferrie, pointed out just prior to his own assassination, you don't leave the agency. Once you are in, you are in for life!

Afghanistan is an interesting place. It has natural gas, petroleum, coal, copper, chromite, talc, barites, sulfur, lead, zinc, iron ore, salt, precious and semi precious stones, and more opium than the Burmese Golden Triangle. It is also one of the most deadly places on Earth, having destroyed every invading army since the time of Alexander the Great!

Afghanistan also sits on the proposed route for an oil pipeline which would allow the vast oil reserves sitting under the Caspian Sea to be brought to market, and it is no secret that a consortium of American oil companies want to build that pipeline. However, as John J. Maresca, vice president of international relations, Unocal Corporation, flat out told Congress in 1998, the pipeline would not be built until the Taliban was removed as the government in Afghanistan, even though the United States had installed the Taliban as part of the anti-Soviet strategy.

When one considers the size of the Caspian oil fields, estimated at about 500 years' worth at present rates of consumption, one finds ample motive to start a war of conquest for that wealth. Compared to the trillions of dollars in oil profits which will flow from that pipeline stretching across Afghanistan, the cost of new World Trade Towers and a few thousand lives is a small price to pay to those who lust for wealth beyond dreams of avarice.

Long before the attacks on the World Trade Towers, the United States was already announcing that there would be a war. While the American people were kept distracted by "All Condit All The Time" in the American press, the foreign press was reporting as early as March 2001 that the United States was planning to invade Afghanistan in October. and here it is, October. and here the United States is invading. and just like with FDR, a provocation occurred just when the government of the United States most needed one to anger the people into support of a war for oil.

No sooner had the planes crashed into the World Trade Towers than the media was reporting official statements of suspicion that Osama Bin Laden was behind the attacks. The FBI issued names of suspected hijackers, none of which appeared on the actual passenger lists, and all based on what the FBI admits were forged IDs using stolen identities. Moreover, the men used those stolen identities the night before the attacks to visit strip bars, making so much noise that they would have to be noticed, ensuring that the credit card slips using the stolen names would be turned over to police. When Flight Attendant Madeline Sweeney phoned the ground from her hijacked plane, she gave the seat numbers of the hijackers. The passengers assigned to those seats do not appear on the FBI's list of suspects. Then there was that suitcase, appearing out of nowhere and assumed to have been left off of one of the crashed planes by accident, containing a flight manual, a Koran, and a handwritten letter which any scholar of Islam would recognize was written by someone ignorant of the religion.

In short, the evidence that purports to link the attacks on the World Trade Towers with Osama appears to be planted, with the scene of the crime looking like the set of a cheap detective movie, with a vital clue always carefully positioned within camera view.

Because of the phony IDs, we do not really know who was on those airplanes, or whom they worked for.

But it is very obvious whom we are all supposed to blame; the people sitting on that oil pipeline right of way! So great is the rush to war in Afghanistan that Osama has himself almost become secondary in the media campaign to sell us all on hatred of the Afghani people. Indeed it isn't Osama who terrorizes Americans, it is the American media, waving fear all over the place. Yes, Anthrax is nasty, but would a real Anthrax attack harm so few people? More people have been gunned down in Washington DC in the last 6 weeks than have died by Anthrax. More people are sick with Dengue fever on Maui than are sick with Anthrax. Yet Anthrax, and the fear it is designed to cause, get the headlines, to keep the public scared, so scared that they cannot think.

Because once the people stop being terrorized by the media and start to think, they'll realize that it makes no more moral sense to bomb the Afghani people over what crimes Osama has done than it makes to bomb people of Chicago over the crimes the Mafia does. And once the American people realize this, they'll start to wonder what the real reason for bombing the Afghani people might be. The they'll start paying attention to John J. Maresca's comments before congress about that oil pipeline. Then the American people will notice those foreign news articles that announced the US invasion of Afghanistan last spring. Then the American people will realize that the timing of the attacks on the World Trade Towers is just a little too convenient to the already scheduled invasion.

And that is when the American people will realize that, once again, they are being lied to swindle them out of their support for a war, a war not fought for moral principle but for profit, profit from oil paid for in the blood of our children.

Source: http://whatreallyhappened.com/overview.html

[igloo]

No wonder you are a schmuck reading shit like this

[sassa]

Originally posted by igloo

No wonder you are a schmuck reading shit like this

:laugh:

and the shit you post is better? :rofl:

[igloo]

Originally posted by sassa

:laugh:

and the shit you post is better? :rofl:

I guess I shouldn't be shocked that you would compare what I post to your outlandish bullshit posts...

Being as dumb and moronic as you are, you couldn't possibly know the difference between reality and bullshit...

Don't you ever tire of being a jerkoff?

[sassa]

Originally posted by igloo

I guess I shouldn't be shocked that you would compare what I post to your outlandish bullshit posts...

Being as dumb and moronic as you are, you couldn't possibly know the difference between reality and bullshit...

Don't you ever tire of being a jerkoff?

so i gather you didn't even bother reading it, comparing it to neutral sources, and coming up with a polite, intelligent response without any slurs or negative insults?

[igloo]

Originally posted by sassa

so i gather you didn't even bother reading it, comparing it to neutral sources, and coming up with a polite, intelligent response without any slurs or negative insults?

At first, I thought you were just a self-branded elitist jerkoff with limited intelligence easily misguided by ridiculous views....

Lately, and with the data culminating with an obvious conclusion, I admit I was wrong.....

It would appear now that you are no diiferent than abnormalnoises, someone with a serious mental disorder who should seek professional therapy and supervised medication.......

I suggest seeking help in another country, therefore you could recieve proper medical care and leave the country you hate so much.....

Good Luck....

[alivak]

Sassa - quick question - how do u prove someone DIDNT disappear. Enough with your bullshit sources, they mean nothing and its very easy to say i have sources. Who the are you're sources, name them. Stop hiding behind them. My sources told me no disapeared. Does that make it more credible?

MaCarthyism was a witchhunt for commies in which people were put through congressional hearinga, this wasnt Stalins russia. Get over your conspiracy theories..its nonsense.

[sassa]

Originally posted by alivak

Sassa - quick question - how do u prove someone DIDNT disappear. Enough with your bullshit sources, they mean nothing and its very easy to say i have sources. Who the are you're sources, name them. Stop hiding behind them. My sources told me no disapeared. Does that make it more credible?

MaCarthyism was a witchhunt for commies in which people were put through congressional hearinga, this wasnt Stalins russia. Get over your conspiracy theories..its nonsense.

all i asked for was proof, but seems like you couldn't come up with it.

then you come back with the "oh stop with the conspiracy theory" i guess if it doesn't conform to your point of view, it's a conspiracy, right?

so i see you and igloo didn't bother coming up with any logical comments to denounce the material in the article? igloo, enough is enough. seriously. you're so annoying with your dumb insults. stop wasting space with bullshit. and type a decent response, if you're so much more smarter and aware of this topic than i am. or any topic, for that matter. just stop acting like a bully child with emotional problems in elementary school. please. i'm sure many people would agree with me as well.

[igloo]

Originally posted by sassa

all i asked for was proof, but seems like you couldn't come up with it.

then you come back with the "oh stop with the conspiracy theory" i guess if it doesn't conform to your point of view, it's a conspiracy, right?

so i see you and igloo didn't bother coming up with any logical comments to denounce the material in the article? igloo, enough is enough. seriously. you're so annoying with your dumb insults. stop wasting space with bullshit. and type a decent response, if you're so much more smarter and aware of this topic than i am. or any topic, for that matter. just stop acting like a bully child with emotional problems in elementary school. please. i'm sure many people would agree with me as well.

ssshhhhhhh

Please.....sssshhhh

[alivak]

Proof what? tell me how do u prove someone was not missing? Simple question - now answer it. I am going by what happened in this country's history and what is known, i am not reaching for the moon trying to create something that isnt there.

Name you're sources - avoiding that one again, proof me wrong. Show us this wealth of knowedge and wordly experience that you possess. Teach me oh great one.

[sassa]

Originally posted by alivak

Proof what? tell me how do u prove someone was not missing? Simple question - now answer it. I am going by what happened in this country's history and what is known, i am not reaching for the moon trying to create something that isnt there.

Name you're sources - avoiding that one again, proof me wrong. Show us this wealth of knowedge and wordly experience that you possess. Teach me oh great one.

i can message you,but even if i put the source here, i would get more of igloo and co.'s bs insults. frankly, i'm tired of it. you can prove it from accounts of people that knew those who got into trouble with mccartney's people, but people would probably discredit them because they didn't show up on fox news. then you can get your hands on reports from that time that prove people were hauled into custody. if they weren't seen after that, that's another way. (no comment about this)

btw, there is no need to be a sarcastic jerk, i merely asked you a simple question. it's scary, but you are starting to sound like igloo-lite now. too bad i thought you were cool when you started posting.

[alivak]

actually i wasnt being sarcastic, i was trying to undertand how i can show something that didnt happen. Sorry if u took it the wrong way.

If you're talking about the last sentence, i was joking but i guess you cant really pick up on that through postings. PM if u want to with the whatever you have, thats fine.